"There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death. What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal."

"I learned from my father: Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, "Is it reasonable?""

"The logical figure of the absurd, which presents as stringent the contradictory opposite of stringency, negates all the meaningfulness logic seems to provide in order to convict logic of its own absurdity: to convict it of using subject, predicate, and copula to lay out the nonidentical as though it were identical, as though it could be accommodated with forms."

"No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."

"There must have been a time, in the beginning, when we could have said – no. But somehow we missed it."

"We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure."

"Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is."

"Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get."

"Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well."

"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face."

"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea."

"Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd."

"The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion."

"To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. … I and this mystery here we stand. (3)"

"I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.) (7)"

"These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe. (17)"

"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."

"Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!"

"Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument."

"My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern… (43)"

"Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. (44)"

"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."

"Interviewer: I’m curious, if you don’t mind talking about it, what was the originally shot and intended ending?"

"Yes, Snyder’s Sucker Punch heroines, the patients at a mental hospital, are relatively thinly-sketched. Yes, in the fantasy world they enter to battle for their freedom, their outfits are not, shall we say, practical. But at the time Sucker Punch came out, it was the rare movie with a female lead to come out of Warner Brothers, Snyder’s longtime studio. Even rarer, it was an original action movie starring women."

"You could go to see “Sucker Punch” this weekend — a lot of people probably will, and a few may even admit as much back at the office on Monday — or you could try to make it yourself, which might be more fun, though not necessarily cheaper. Here’s what you will need: a bunch of video-game platforms; DVDs of “Shutter Island,” “Kill Bill,” “Burlesque” and “Shrek”; some back issues of Maxim; a large bag of crystal meth; and around $100 million. Your imagination will take care of the rest."

"Interviewer: Would you say the film is a critique on sexist geek culture?"

"Q: What are your thoughts on how Zack Synder writes women?"

"Actually, the whole film is a surgical strike on your visual senses and intellectual faculties. Snyder’s efforts to have you believe this is some kind of empowering, riot-grrls-together redemption story would be more convincing if the cameras didn’t slather quite as droolingly whenever the women, clad in fishnets and schoolgirl outfits, come into view. The men, meanwhile, are a one-dimensional army of lechers, paedophiles, rapists and misogynists. The standard defence for this kind of film is that it’s not meant to be analysed too closely, it’s only entertainment. With Sucker Punch, you could also say that its narrative slackness is down to its themes (mental instability) and to the way that it taps into the dream logic of gamer culture. But even its battle scenes are deadly boring. If I had to choose between this and the most bog-standard computer game, it wouldn’t be any contest at all."

"Interviewer: I thought it was basically you commenting on those attendants at Comic-Con who shout, “You’re hot!” at beautiful cast members."

"Q: What are your characters’ relationships to Baby Doll?"

"Q: Could you talk a little bit about your dance scene today, Jena?"

"Q: Why are your characters in the asylum?"

"Q: Could you talk about the costumes that you wear in the film?"

"Q: Can you talk about your reactions when you first the saw costumes you’d be wearing?"

"Interviewer: Is it wrong to enjoy seeing Babydoll in that school girl outfit, though?"

"You could say that Sucker Punch is a nymphet version of The Snake Pit or Shutter Island, or a live-action, green-screened redo of The Powerpuff Girls, or Black Swan (Carla Gugino has the demanding dance master role here) with a higher nightmare quotient, or an $82 million tribute to Jess Franco’s sublimely cheesy women-in-prison movies of the ’70s, or an Americanization of Norifumi Suzuki “pinky violence” melodramas (Girl Boss Guerrilla, Sex and Fury) of the same decade, or, in its backstory about a decent girl deprived of her inheritance and consigned to grow up in a prisonlike environment, a gloss on mid-19th-century classics from Jane Eyre to Little Dorrit. With the action scenes playing like production numbers in some high-concept musical, you’ll be reminded of Julie Taymor’s Beatles fantasia, Across the Universe. The visual palette suggests the creepy pastel paintings of Guy Peellaert (Rock Dreams); the fantasy battles with monsters and samurais echo the muscular landscapes of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. The movie is like an arrested adolescent’s Google search run amok. The teen boy who would get lost in that cyber wonderland — he’s also Sucker Punch‘s target demographic — is meant to fixate on the five girls who go questing. Known only by their prostitute pseudonyms, they include whey-haired sisters Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and Rocket (Jena Malone), a brunette called Blondie (High School Musical‘s Vanessa Hudgens) and the Asian Amber (Jamie Chung). Snyder doesn’t bother much with differentiating these four, as they may simply be personalities fever-dreamed by Baby Doll. That’s Browning, who with the giant eyes, puffy lips and fake eyelashes could be her own anime doll, the whole package dressed in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit as retailored by Victoria’s Secret."

"Q: What is your connection to the other girls in the film?"

"Q: While we already sort of know the character you play, could you talk about who you play in the film?"

"Q: Each of the characters have a sort of iconography that goes along with them. Did you have any input on that and how do you feel about the schoolgirl aspect that you have going on?"

"Q: There are four action set pieces that we have been told about. What have you filmed already and can you talk about it?"

"Q: We were kind of talking about this at lunch today. The design of these characters and your character, the dominatrix kind of thing. We’ve heard ‘empowerment’ mentioned in terms of these characters, but they look a little more like ideals…"

"Gerard Plunkett - The Stepfather / Priest"

"Scott Glenn - The Wise Man / The General / The Bus Drive"

"Patrick Sabongui - Earl"

"Q: You have to perform this character in several different levels of fantasy and reality on top of all of the physical stuff. Is it extremely challenging?"

"Jon Hamm - The Doctor / The High Roller"

"Q: As actors, I would assume that you have some freedom to sort of explore and dig into your real world characters. But when you cross over into this other world, do you have to be careful to sort of do your preparation through the prism of how Baby Doll would see or imagine you? Does it force you to understand her character more, as well as your own?"

"Interviewer: Did you think a lot in the writing process, “Would a woman say this?”"

"Jena Malone - Rocket"

"Abbie Cornish - Sweet Pea"